This page is about the Republic of Georgia. For the state of the United States
Georgia, also known as Sakartvelo in Georgian, is a transcontinental nation that is at the meeting point of Eastern Europe and Western Asia. It is a part of the Caucasus area, which is bordered to the west by the Black Sea, to the north and northeast by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, and to the south and southeast by Armenia. There are 3.7 million people living in the 69,700 square kilometers (26,900 square miles) nation Its capital and largest city, Tbilisi, is where about one-third of all Georgians live.
Several autonomous kingdoms, including Colchis and Iberia, were created in what is now Georgia throughout the classical era. The official adoption of Christianity by ethnic Georgians at the beginning of the fourth century had a role in the early Georgian republics’ political and spiritual union. During the 12th and early 13th centuries, under the rule of King David IV and Queen Tamar, the united Kingdom of Georgia was born in the Middle Ages and experienced its Golden Age. Under the dominion of other regional powers, such as the Mongols, the Turks, and several Persia dynasties, the kingdom then started to weaken and eventually fell apart. One of the Georgian kingdoms joined forces with the Russian Empire in 1783, and as a result, the Russian Empire annexed modern-day Georgia in a piecemeal manner.
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Georgia formed as an independent country under German protection during the 1917 Russian Revolution Georgia was conquered and occupied by the Soviet Union after World War I, and it later became one of its member republics. By the 1980s, a movement for independence had begun, and it had quickly gained momentum. As a result, Georgia broke away from the Soviet Union in April 1991. Post-Soviet Georgia experienced economic hardship, political unrest, racial unrest, and secessionist warfare in Abkhazia and South Ossetia for the majority of the following ten years. Georgia firmly pursued a pro-Western foreign policy after the nonviolent Rose Revolution in 2003; it enacted a number of democratic and economic reforms with a view to enlargement into the European Union and NATO. As a result of the nation’s Western orientation, ties with Russia quickly deteriorated, Georgia is a unitary parliamentary country that practices representative democracy With a very high Human Development Index, it is a developing nation. Since independence, economic reforms have increased economic freedom and decreased indicators of corruption, poverty, and unemployment. Being the only former socialist state to do so, it was one of the first nations in the world to legalize marijuana. The nation belongs to a number of international organizations, including the WTO, the Energy Community, the OSCE, Eurocontrol, the EBRD, the BSEC, the GUAM, the ADB, the Council of Europe, and the OSCE.
The name Georgia is originally recorded in Italian on Pietro Vesconte’s Mappa Mundi, which dates from AD 1320 When it originally entered the Latin language, it wasn’t always transliterated consistently, and the first consonant was sometimes spelled with a J as in Georgia. Georgia most likely derives from the Persian name for Georgians, gurn, which was borrowed into Syriac and Arabic in the 11th and 12th centuries. Traveler Jacques de Vitry offered lore-based interpretations, explaining the name’s origin by citing Georgians’ devotion to St. George, while traveler Jean Chardin believed Georgia’s name originated from the Greek (’tiller of the soil’). These more than a century-old justifications for the terms “Georgia” and “Georgians,” according to Alexander Mikaberidze are disregarded by the academic establishment, which emphasizes the Persian word as the word’s origin. The word was first used in Persian and eventually appeared in many other languages, including Slavic and West European ones. This title may have originated from the ancient Iranian designation of the region near the Caspian Sea, which was known as Gorgan. the Kartvelians’ eponymous ancestor, Karlos, a great-grandson of Japheth, is depicted in the medieval Georgian Chronicles. However, experts concur that the term derives from the Karts, who was a proto-Georgian tribe that became the dominating group in antiquity The word Sakartvelo is composed of two components. Its origin, kartvel-i, designates a resident of the central-eastern Georgian region of Kartli, also known as Iberia in sources from the Eastern Roman Empire Early inhabitants of western and eastern Georgia were referred to as Colchians and Iberians, respectively, by ancient Greek (Strabo, Herodotus, Plutarch, Homer, etc.) and Roman (Titus Livius, Tacitus, etc.) writers A common geographic designation for “the area where X dwell” in Georgian is the circumfix sa-X-o, where X is an ethnonym.
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Georgia has produced wine from at least 6,000 BC, according to archeological data, and over time, this has contributed to the development of Georgia’s culture and sense of national identity Early Georgian nations began to emerge throughout the classical era, with Colchis in the west and Iberia in the east serving as the most important ones. In the epic story Argonautica by Apollonius Rhodius, Jason and the Argonauts sought the Golden Fleece, which they eventually found in Colchis. The use of fleeces to separate gold dust from rivers may have inspired the myth’s inclusion of the Golden Fleece A kingdom of Iberia with a single ruler and advanced political organization that existed in the fourth century BC.
After the Roman Republic’s brief invasion of what is now Georgia in 66 BC, the region became the main focus of what would turn out to be more than 700 years of protracted geopolitical rivalry and warfare between the Iranian and Roman empires Beginning in the first century AD, Zoroastrianism, the worship of Mithras, and other paganisms were all widely practiced in Georgia. King Mirian III established Christianity as the official religion in 337 AD, which greatly influenced the growth of literature and the arts and ultimately contributed to the unification of the Georgian country Zoroastrianism, which up until the fifth century AD appeared to have become a second established religion in Iberia, slowly but surely declined as a result of the adoption (eastern Georgia)
Iberia Bagratid
The decline of Iberian royal dynasties like the Guaramids and the Chosroids as well as the Abbasids’ concern with their own internal conflicts and war with the Byzantine Empire were factors that contributed to the Bagrationi family’s rise to power. Ashot I of Iberia, the leader of the Bagrationi dynasty, took control of Tao-Klarjeti in 813 and reinstated the Principate of Iberia. Ashot I of Iberia had previously traveled to the former southwestern lands of Iberia. The three distinct lineages founded by Ashot I’s sons and grandchildren were in recurrent conflict with one another and other local kings. In 888, Adarnase IV of Iberia (r. 888–923), a member of the Kartli line, revived the indigenous royal authority that had lain dormant since 580. However, the remaining Georgian possessions were lost due to the revival of the Iberian monarchy
Country of Abkhazia
King Bagrat III ordered the Bedia Chalice, a piece of medieval Georgian goldsmithing from around 999, for the Bedia Cathedral in Abkhazia.
In 736, Leon I (reigning 720–740) and his Lazic and Iberian allies successfully defeated an Arab invasion of western Georgia under the command of Marwan II. Then, after Leon I wed Mirian’s daughter, Leon II used this dynastic union to conquer Lazica in the 770s The Abkhazian princes were able to assert greater independence from the Byzantine Empire thanks to their successful defense against the Arabs and fresh geographical conquests. With the aid of the Khazars, Leon II (r. 780–828) gained complete independence in 778 and was anointed king of Abkhazia. When the state won its independence, the
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The primary issue evolved into the issue of church independence. The Georgian language superseded Greek as the language of literacy and culture when the Abkhazian Church split from Constantinople and acknowledged the rule of the Catholicate of Mtskheta in the early ninth century Between 850 and 950, the Abkhazian monarchy experienced its height of prosperity. Under the unfortunate ruler Theodosius III the Blind, a bloody civil war and feudal uprisings that started under Demetrius III (r. 967-975) brought total anarchy to the country (r. 975–978). A period of turbulence followed, but it came to an end when King Bagrat III of Georgia (r. 975–1014) united Abkhazia and eastern Georgian provinces under a single Georgian monarchy, largely as a result of the diplomacy and conquests of his zealous foster-father.
To effectively counter foreign threats, David consolidated authority under his control and repressed feudal lord opposition. During the Battle of Didgori in 1121, he soundly defeated a far bigger Turkish army, freeing Tbilisi Queen Tamar was the first independent female monarch of medieval Georgia Tamar, Georgia’s first female king, is regarded as having had the most success during her 29-year tenure Tamar was crowned “king of kings (mepe nepeta) She was successful in stifling resistance, and with the fall of the rival Seljuk and Byzantine empires, she launched an active foreign policy. Tamar was able to draw on the achievements of her forebears to solidify an empire with the aid of a strong military elite. Before collapsing under Mongol raids within two decades after Tamar’s death in 1213, the Caucasus was ruled by a vast empire that included significant portions of modern-day Azerbaijan, Armenia, eastern Turkey, and sections of northern Iran.
The conquest and destruction of Tbilisi by the Khwarezmian leader Jalal ad-Din in 1226 put the restoration of the Kingdom of Georgia at a standstill George V of Georgia (reigned 1299–1302), the son of Demetrius II of Georgia (reigned 1270–1289), was dubbed “Brilliant” for his part in re-establishing the nation’s former power and Christian culture. The united Georgian state had one great king, George V. Local leaders struggled for their freedom from central Georgian rule after his death up until the complete dissolution of the Kingdom in the 15th century. Tamerlane launched multiple disastrous invasions, which severely undermined Georgia. Black and White sheep Turkomans frequently raided the kingdom’s southern frontier while invasions persisted, leaving no time for rebuilding.
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By 1466, the Kingdom of Georgia had disintegrated into anarchy, split into three independent kingdoms, and five partially independent principalities. Subsequently, powerful neighboring empires took use of Georgia’s internal divisions to conquer its eastern and western areas, respectively, starting in the 16th century and lasting until the late 18th. These empires were Safavid Iran (and succeeding Iranian Afsharid and Qajar dynasties). Numerous times, the leaders of the partially autonomous areas planned uprisings. However, later invasions by the Ottoman Empire and the Iranians further devastated the local kingdoms and areas. At the end of the 18th century, Georgia had a population of 784,700 people due to the ongoing Ottoman-Persian Wars and deportations The regions of Kartli and Kakheti make up Eastern Georgia (Safavid Georgia).
The Treaty of Georgievsk, which was signed in 1783 by Russia and the eastern Georgian Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, established the kingdom as a protectorate of Russia and guaranteed Georgia’s territorial integrity and the survival of its ruling Bagrationi dynasty in exchange for privileges in the management of Georgian foreign affairs. Georgia renounced all ties to Persia or any other power The Iranians invaded Georgia in 1795, conquering and sacking Tbilisi and massacring its citizens as the new heir to the throne attempted to restore Iranian control, but despite this vow to defend Georgia, Russia provided no support Despite a subsequent campaign of retaliation against the Qajar Iranian government in 1796, this time period culminated with Russia’s breach of the Treaty of Georgievsk and conquest of eastern Europe in 1801. Georgia, the end of the Bagrationi dynasty, and the establishment of the Georgian Orthodox Church as an autonomous entity. One of the extinguished Bagrationi family’s descendants, Pyotr Bagration, would eventually enlist in the Russian army and become a notable general during the Napoleonic wars.
The proclamation incorporating Georgia (Kartli-Kakheti) into the Russian Empire was signed by Tsar Paul I of Russia on December 22, 1800, allegedly at the request of Georgian King George XII. It was then finalized by a decree on January 8, 1801, and approved by Tsar Alexander I on September 12, 1801. The royal dynasty of Bagrationi was expelled from the realm. The Russian vice-chancellor Prince Kurakin received a message of protest from the Georgian ambassador in Saint Petersburg in response to General Carl Heinrich von Knorring overseeing the transfer of authority from Imperial Russia to the General Ivan Petrovich Lazarev-led administration in eastern Georgia in May 1801. The ordinance was not accepted by the Georgian nobility until Knorring gathered on April 12, 1802.